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5 popular items that are giving hackers access to your network without you knowing

Posted: September 7, 2018By Anderson Morgan

It isn't just computers that can be hacked.

5. Fridges

Our fridges always let us down when we’re trying to diet by offering up that block of cheese you’ve been saving, or the chocolates that you thought you’d forgotten about. However, is your fridge also letting hackers into your network?

Modern fridges are connected to the ‘Internet of Things’ and connect to Wi-Fi to provide data back to manufacturers on their performance. This connection gives hackers a ‘way in’ to your network.

4. Cars

Cars with smart functions, such as keyless ignition or satellite navigation are vulnerable to hackers, who can gain control of the computer system and worringly even control the function of the car itself, like the Jeep below.

3. Adult Toys

Yes, really. Recently a ‘high-end’sex toy, which connected to other devices via bluetooth connectivity allowed hackers in Berlin to breach a home network. The breach occured as the
pre-set Bluetooth passcode was ‘1234’, hackers guessed this code, which was enough for them to breach the network.

In similar news, a company has recently been forced to pay millions of dollars in compensation to customers who purchased the ‘We-Vibe-Rave’ toy. The manufacturer were found guilty of ‘spying’ on its own customers to determine battery life, temperature and average usage time of the device.

2. Wi-Fi Routers

This may seem like an obvious one, but Wi-Fi routers remain one of the easiest entries for hackers to any network. Wi-Fi can be the gateway to accessing account log-ins in simple networks, but in some ‘smart’ homes Wi-Fi could actually
help to reveal family activies (such as who is in the house and who is out of the house) as well even granting physical access to your home or car!

1. Baby Monitors

Although a rather scary prospect, baby monitors are a device which are regularly hacked. In a similar vain to many devices, users don’t consider the risks of connecting them to a network. Modern baby monitors now connect to Wi-Fi as standard
to allow ‘remote monitoring’ of a baby in its room. Many stories of hacks via baby monitors begin the same way: the device was visible to people searching for a Wi-Fi scan and the default password was easy to guess (e.g 1234).

Our advice: Make the device invisible on the Wi-Fi network and change the passcode to a random assortment of letters or numbers which only you know.